Abruptly, she leaned forward, dropping her face into her hands, catching at her breath as the agonizing sobs fought to be free of her iron restraint.
Two hands grasped at her shoulders. “My lady? Oh, my lady, I do wish as how something might be done for you.”
Rosina pulled upright, thrusting down on the betraying emotion. “I am quite all right, Joan.”
The maid laid down the brush, and bobbed a curtsy. “Begging your pardon, my lady, but I know as you’re not. Nor his lordship ain’t neither.”
“Joan, you forget yourself!”
“I know, my lady, but I’m your personal maid, and if I don’t say something, no one won’t.”
Rosina eyed her in the mirror. She should have known the servants were well informed. Why would they not be, especially with this skeleton staff? But the last thing she wanted was to discuss the intricacies of her marriage with her maid. She had, it appeared, little choice.
“I wouldn’t have said nothing, only Mr Kirkham is that troubled over his lordship, and—”
“Why is Kirkham troubled?” interrupted Rosina, an instant tattoo starting up in her pulse.
Heaven knew she was aware of the turmoil of Anton’s mind. She had been relieved by his absence from dinner tonight. She had kept her room more than four days, even to the near finish of her troublesome monthly time, but she could hardly stay cooped up there. On emergence, the unavoidable encounters at dinner stretched her nerves to the utmost. She studiously evaded either Raith’s gaze or his conversation. She could not trust herself to look at him, and had to steel herself to withstand the moody emanations of his volatile temperament.
“Mr Kirkham says his lordship has spent half the night in his library these few days,” disclosed the maid, adding on a significant note, “with the brandy decanter. Mr Kirkham is afraid he will drink himself to death, like our late lord.”
Dread rose up in Rosina’s breast. “His lordship’s brother?” But, no. Anton had hated his brother. He would not follow his example.
“Yes, my lady, and his lordship come home from Mr Ottery’s not a half hour since, looking like a death’s head on a mopstick, so Mr Paulersbury says.”
A jolt smote Rosina’s chest, and she put up a hand to her mouth. She stared at the maid’s apple-cheeked features without seeing her. Ottery was then back. What had her guardian said? What had Raith been told? Despite all her resolution to accept the fate she assumed to be coming, the prospect of its imminence threw her into instant apprehension. An irregular flutter started up in her pulse, and her mouth went dry.
“My lady!”
She blinked, and realised Joan was gawping at her. Rosina pulled herself together, and rose from the dressing stool. “That will be all, I thank you.”
The maid followed her into her bedchamber, and placed a candle by the bed. She waited while Rosina climbed between sheets, and tucked her in.
“Good night, my lady.” She hesitated, and then dropped a curtsy. “Mayhap his lordship is safe in his bed, my lady. He rung for Mr Paulersbury not a moment before you rung for me.”
This intelligence did nothing to ease the ferment of Rosina’s mind. The knowledge that at night Anton was but four doors away was torture to her. She had lain in her bed, desperately trying not to indulge an idiotic wish he might come to her. How should he do so, even did he wish to, when she had withdrawn herself so sternly?
But that he had today seen Ottery, and come home looking — what had Joan said? An expression that gave her a hideous image. It could only mean the worst. This must be the finish. Tomorrow, he would summon her to the saloon, and inform her that their marriage was to be dissolved.
Such an intense shaft of distress shot through her at this thought she was for several moments incapable of getting her breath. When she did, she blew out the candle, and thrust herself down under the covers, burrowing so that the sound of her bursting sobs might not penetrate through the intervening walls to the ears of the man for whom she grieved.
There was no question of sleep. When her tears abated, she lay in the darkness, listening, against all reason, for the impossible sound of a footstep. She tossed and turned, fighting a growing pressure that urged her to get up and go to him, to know for certain what he intended.
Why question it? She knew what must happen. There could be but one outcome. She had heard nothing from Forteviot, but that did not mean the evil wretch had not contacted Raith. Now she knew Ottery was come with information from Herbert Cambois, she could hope for no succour. Had there been a favourable outcome, would Anton not have come to her instantly? He was gently disposed towards her, and would not have kept her unnecessarily in suspense.
At length, Rosina could endure it no longer. She sat up in bed, and groped in the darkness for the tinderbox, kept on the bedside table. When she tried to strike the flint for a light, she discovered her hands were shaking. It took some time, but at last she managed to relight her candle.
She got up and shrugged on her wrapper, and in short order had reached the antechamber, where her nerves stayed her from knocking upon Raith’s dressing-room door.
For a moment or two, she toyed with the idea of going back to bed. But she would not sleep. The longer she lay awake, the more her anxiety would grow. It was better to beard Raith now and find out the worst. After all, if he meant to set her aside, she had a right to know of it.
Screwing up her courage, she returned to the door, and listened for a moment. Suppose he was asleep? She drew a determined breath. If he was, then she must wake him. With the thought, she lifted her hand and rapped smartly on the door. No sound came from within. Rosina bit her lip, and grasped the handle.
It was the first time she had been inside Raith’s dressing-room. It resembled her own, and she could see little in the dim light from her candle, but for an apparent overflow of garments. Rosina hurried through to the bedchamber door, and once again halted to listen. She could hear nothing. If he was there, he was certainly asleep.
She did not knock this time, but stealthily opened the door. The curtains were not drawn, and the bed was empty. Rosina swept her candle about, but no movement disturbed the shadows. Rosina did not know whether she was relieved or disappointed. Slowly she advanced towards the door that led to the corridor, recalling what Joan had told her. A frisson went through her at the remembrance of Kirkham’s expressed fears.
Moving with a swiftness born of other than her wish to find out her fate, Rosina trod softly down the stairs, and across the hall to a door leading to the rear of the mansion. She had been shown the library by Mrs Fawley and remembered the way.
As she approached the door, Rosina could see a glimmer of light beneath it, and knew her husband was within. Her heart skittered as the thought of her mission came back to her mind. She hesitated outside the door, fighting an impulse to withdraw again. But it would not do. She gathered her courage, and seized the brass handle.
She did not immediately see him, and for an instant was conscious of disappointment. But a pool of light caught the centre of the room, and Rosina followed it. She saw his arm, hanging slackly over the side of a chair, his fingers just above an overturned glass which must have fallen from his hand.
Rosina came around the chair, and her heart melted. Raith sat slumped, tousled hair ragged about his shoulders, his bed-gown open and awry over a nightshirt. He was asleep, or nearly so, breathing in that stertorous way Rosina instantly recognised. Her spouse was drunk.
